


My Lost Friend

by yuletidefairy



Category: Scrubs
Genre: First Person, Gen, Internal Monologue, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletidefairy/pseuds/yuletidefairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I probably would have fallen apart, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lost Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefourthvine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine/gifts).



The thing about Nick Murdoch is, if I had lost a seven-year-old patient die on me that early on, I probably would have fallen apart, too. See, by and large I got what Dr. Cox calls goobers. I mean, sometimes I call them goobers too but I always feel bad about it. Old people can be really neat, you know? Like Mrs. Tanner.

Mrs. Tanner had all these awesome stories. She'd been to Paris and Japan and Graceland and this one time when she and her husband were young they went on this two-week hiking trip through the Sierra Nevadas to the Donner Memorial State Park. Isn't that so neat? I mean, I would be scared to go on a trip like that because I'm so athletically challenged that at the end of the first day of hiking I'd be gasping for breath five miles behind the rest of the group and by the time I caught up they'd have the fire all set up to roast me over because I was slowing down the expedition. I can totally picture Turk and Carla arguing over who gets to eat my thighs. Elliot seems like more of a breast man. I mean, I guess Mrs. Tanner and her husband got through it without eating each other because they had like, six kids later.

Anyway, Mrs. Tanner turned down dialysis and told me she was ready to die. It wasn't the greatest thing that ever happened to me but it was a lot less traumatic than almost any other way a patient could kick it. She had accepted it and she was old and I don't mean that in a mean way, I just mean she'd had the time for a full life. Not like Nick's seven-year-old.

And the other thing is, Nick didn't have Dr. Cox for a mentor, not the way I did. I mean, he got that case report on post-partum hemolytic anemia, Dr. Cox picked him for that but he really only did it to tweak me because Dr. Cox likes me better than all the other interns and he has a hard time showing affection. Every time he calls me girls' names and tells me I'm annoying and irritating and and vexing and a total nuisance of lo-ooo-ooo-hoo-oser, I know what he really means is that he's proud of how well I'm doing but he can't say so because his divorce with Jordan left him emotionally scarred and he can't open up. Even though Jordan says he was always a charming asshole and that's why she fell for him (the charm, not the asshole, although the arrogance was a little titillating) and that over the course of their marriage _he_ turned _her_ into a total bitch in self-defense.

Of course, Dr. Cox says that Jordan's bitchiness was what attracted _him_ to _her_ in the first place--not so much the fact that she'd be able to keep up with him conversationally, because he didn't honestly expect ever to have a conversation with her after he rolled over and went to sleep, but he figured anyone that scathing had to be up for some rough sex and she hadn't disappointed, she'd left bruises and claw marks all over him, which he says he really wanted because he actually hates himself a lot but doesn't have the courage to cut himself like a suicidal teenage girl. You know, I don't know how seriously to take him about that, I think he was showing his love for me by making cracks about my femininity again, but the point remains. He cares for me deeply, and one of the first things he ever told me when I came to Sacred Heart was how you can't care too much about all the patients that are gonna die on you for the sake of your own sanity and ability to help the people you _can_ help. He was mostly talking about goobers and I totally thought he was just being insensitive at the time, but I don't think he or anybody else told Nick that.

Nick was as much of a bright-eyed idealist as I was before Dr. Cox started crushing my soul for his own amusement and to toughen me up because I was too girly to deal with matters of life and death. I mean, I still believe in caring for patients and trying to connect with them because sometimes your compassion can make the difference between life and death, but I don't know. Dr. Cox made me think about how to give the most caring to the most people that it will help the most, and in some ways that sounds really coldly practical and in some ways it seems like the best thing you can do.

I mean, Nick put all his caring into that one kid and the kid _died_ and Nick... didn't have anything left. That's why he broke. You can't care and care and care, you have to pull back a little and keep for yourself so you can still function the next day. It's hard to keep something for yourself, you think _I don't need anything but to be able to make it all better for all my patients,_ but it doesn't work that way.

I think maybe the reason Dr. Cox is so gruff is because he's trying to save his caring face for when it counts. Nick was always on for everybody--even the other interns. I mean, I want to be liked, I'm not as over the top as Dr. Cox about that, but they're not sick, they can take care of themselves, most of the time. It's one thing when it's showing how much you care about your best friends, like when I bring Turk sno-balls from the vending machine in the break room on the sixth floor because you know nothing cheers him up like sharing a pink, cream-filled Hostess snack with a buddy.

But you can't be like that all the time with everybody, and part of what made me realize that was Nick. He tried, and I was so envious of him, I wanted to be just as good and connected and caring as he was, until, like Dr. Cox says, he left his heart on his sleeve for too long and someone sideswiped him in the hall and just knocked it right off. How do you come back from that? Nick didn't.

I hear Nick's a veterinarian now, does vaccines and neuterings at a no-kill animal shelter. I thought about taking Rowdy over--he needs a booster--but I'm afraid Nick would think I was making fun of him and not trying to reconnect and be his friend. He's not Turk or Elliot or Carla, but he's a nice guy and I wish I knew enough about him to know if he'd like sno-balls or stuffed dogs or even thigh or breast meat. But I don't, and he was so fragile when he left, so I don't know what to do for him and I'm afraid to try to joke and joking is really my strength, you know. I wish. I just wish I knew what to say.


End file.
